Guest Column: Time for U.S. to start exporting oil

10:38 PM,
Feb. 27, 2014

Written by

Bernard L. Weinstein

U.S. petroleum output grew by more than a million barrels a day last year and is forecast to jump another million in 2014 thanks primarily from the application of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in the many shale plays currently under development, most notably the Eagle Ford in South Texas and the Bakken in North Dakota.

The surge of new production is particularly remarkable considering that output from the Gulf of Mexico is lower than three years ago, a legacy of the Macondo spill and the subsequent drilling moratorium.